If “Shark Tank” lowered its stakes and the average contestant’s age, it would look a lot like Washington Business Week.
A statewide program that invites high school juniors to local chapters for a hands-on business simulation, Lewis County’s rendition of the program has changed hands between organizers several times over the years. It has traditionally only included students from Centralia and W.F. West high schools.
This year, for the first time in the current organizers’ knowledge, the marketplace education will include students from Morton, too. Between all three schools, that’s more than 500 juniors — making it the largest business week in Washington for the 2023-24 school year.
Lewis County Business Week is scheduled for Dec. 11-14 at Centralia College and will be hosted by Kiddin’ Around, a local, family- and children-focused nonprofit, for the second year in a row. The organization’s leaders intend to run Business Week in perpetuity.
To manage 500 or more students, Kiddin’ Around directors Naomi Robb and Cameron McGee need to recruit 32 “company advisors” who have open schedules from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Dec. 11-14.
“You don’t have to know about how to run a business,” Robb said. “You just have to care.”
At Business Week, students from the three schools are blended into small groups. Teams invent a new product and compete with other “companies” over the course of six fiscal quarters. Winners receive bragging rights.
“The biggest thing a company advisor can do is to build relationships with the students and care about them in their lives, to foster team spirit, and make it a really positive experience for them. Because the kids do get to have a lot more autonomy this week than they would in school,” Robb said. “There’s a lot more freedom. They get to make more choices.”
Teams appoint students to the positions of CEO, marketing directors and so forth. The autonomy at Business Week, the organizers said, also gives students a sense of college life. Each team will have its own classroom at Centralia College for the week.
Advisors are “highly” discouraged from simply telling the students how to win, McGee said. “(Students) are supposed to be figuring out and learning from their mistakes,” McGee said. “It’s not a micromanaging situation.”
Students make decisions about when to take out loans, where to invest money over the course of a fiscal year, and when to adjust product quality and quantity. Teams also create a commercial for their product and present to “shareholders” on Business Week’s final day.
Volunteers who can’t swing a full four days have an opportunity to participate on the final day, Robb said, by acting as shareholders, investors or both. Those volunteers only need to listen to a presentation and pass out Monopoly money to impressive teams.
“The kids really get into it,” Robb said.
What thrills Robb most about the program, she said, is watching students who started the week as skeptics become excited about their companies.
Anyone interested in volunteering should email kiddinaround360@gmail.com or visit https://www.kiddinaround360.com and scroll to “Become a Company Advisor” under the Washington Business Week banner. Advisors will also need to participate in a training, so applications for the position are due by Friday, Nov. 24.
